Forty unpublished photographs by Massimo Golfieri show the fall of the Berlin Wall, 30 years after the event

From October 31 to November 28, 2019, Studio Cenacchi in Bologna will host the exhibition Berlin, Brandenburger Tor 1989, thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The exhibition will present for the first time to the public forty unpublished photographs taken by Imola photographer Massimo Golfieri (Faenza, 1953) with which it is intended to retrace one of the most significant historical moments of the 20th century. The Berlin Wall in fact not only divided the German city and the whole of Germany, but also the world, being a symbol of the division between opposing ideologies.

The photographer has captured the atmosphere of hope and ferment that was experienced in East and West Berlin in November and December 1989, after twenty-eight years of division: people in the Polish Market at Potsdamer Platz or caught in passing on the sidewalks of the East stations are portrayed; in their faces conflicting emotions that are poorly represented by the collective imagination, feelings of joy and hope are accompanied by fear and dread toward an uncertain future.

“Nevertheless, Golfieri lingers his sensitive eye on the celebrations of the finally and suddenly free Berliners, but above all on their existences. We see a smiling family in a mythical Trabant car, people waiting for a train at a small station, improvised Polish merchants selling all kinds of objects on the ground amidst the mud of Potsdamer Platz, very young and lost Vopos the terrible East German guards, the Wall, now a mere architectural structure after having been an impassable border for 28 years. Finally, the most important aspect, the gazes of the people, disturbed by the enormity of what had just been accomplished around them and, not secondary, by what unknown awaited them,” says curator Jacopo Cenacchi.

All of the photographs in the exhibition are black-and-white analogs, printed on silver-salt, baryta paper, often hand-colored using the pictorialist technique of albumen pigments. Each colored print is thus a unique piece. The photographs will be accompanied by the projection of a looped photo-video, made by Golfieri himself.

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday from 3:30 to 7 p.m. and by appointment. Special opening Friday, Nov. 1 from 3:30 to 7 p.m.

Ph.Credit Massimo Golfieri

Forty unpublished photographs by Massimo Golfieri show the fall of the Berlin Wall, 30 years after the event

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